


I'm Not Afraid To Fall (I'll Never Hit The Ground)

by Ellienerd14



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, F/M, First chapter is Blackwing heavy btw, Groundshog day au, Immortal Bart and Dirk au, Project Blackwing (Dirk Gently), some character near deaths
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-08-14
Packaged: 2019-06-07 11:05:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15217793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ellienerd14/pseuds/Ellienerd14
Summary: Bart Curlish is many things: an assassin, a prisoner and holistic.She's also unkillable.-"Did you just dodge a bullet?"She shrugs. "The bullet dodged me."(She doesn't tell him it killed her yesterday.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by this tumblr post: https://bazwillendinflames.tumblr.com/post/175555687479/in-the-vast-world-of-comics-i-wonder-if-there 
> 
> -
> 
> In the vast world of comics, I wonder if there have been heroes with a “Groundhog Day,” type power. By that I specifically mean a hero who, if they die, immediately finds themselves waking up at the beginning of that day again. If they don’t die, they just continue forward through time.
> 
> I’m just thinking of how crazy it would be to have that hero on your super hero team. Like, you go to headquarters in the morning, and it seems like everything’s normal. But then you go to fire off a one liner, and they say it at the same time as you. And suddenly you know. Something went wrong.
> 
> And then one day you come in, and your heart drops as you see that their every move looks rehearsed. They answer questions before asked. They are totally aware of everything that’s about to happen. Imagine how scary that would be, realizing you’re starting a day that you’re team mate has failed to survive maybe dozens of times.

[INSPIRATION ](https://bazwillendinflames.tumblr.com/post/175555687479/in-the-vast-world-of-comics-i-wonder-if-there)

 

* * *

 

 

Bart doesn’t even realise her holistic gifts go beyond knowing who to kill and killing them until Blackwing push her too far. She’s hard to harm, they discover, no shock machine could hold her and locks were always faulty if she wants to escape a room. 

Bart isn’t made of armour though, sleeping on the floor leaves bruises and throwing knifes leave little nicks on her hand. But still, to them, she’s too unbreakable. 

Even holistics have limits, they had decided. 

It led to her being faced with a steep cliff face and another kid. (Not that Bart thinks that she’s a kid anymore. She’s lost track of her age but she’s old enough to know how to fight.) 

Mr Priest whispers something slimey to the other kid and he shakes his head. He’s small, very small, dressed in a similar Blackwing jumpsuit but with a multicolour rubber band around his wrist. When Mr Priest turns he whispers to it, keeping his eyes down. 

Bart may feel grown up but this is just a kid. She feels weirdly protective but the universe whispers she shouldn’t act on it - Mr Priest needs to stay alive still. Bart is often resentful of this but she can’t fight the universe. If she was a vessel it whispered to, she must listen. 

“What’s his name?” she asks when Mr Priest returns to her. 

“Icarus.” 

It’s a dumb name but Bart nods anyway. 

“Why are we here?” 

“A test,” he replies, eyes alight with trouble. “Icarus is feeling shy,” the boy shifts away at the mention of his name, “so Marzanna, want to show him it’s safe?” 

Her skin prickles. “What’s safe?” she asks, even if the cliff speaks for herself. 

“You can survive anything.”

Bart isn’t convinced but she looks over at the terrified kid. If she doesn’t jump first, he’ll have to. 

She holds her arms open and falls forward. It’s just water - until a jagged rock comes closer and closer into her vision. Bart opens her mouth to scream but when it’s only inches from impaling her, she falls slower and slower until the world around her just freezes. 

It’s a new gift and Bart has seconds to process it before she’s pulled backwards by an unseen force and thrown back at the start of the day. 

 

* * *

Bart’s up before the sirens shriek for once, throwing up. It feels as if her organs have been twisted up and it’s only after she’s sat on the cold floor that she understands the cause. 

The force, the strange unseen force that saved her life, had somehow brought her safe from the cliff. 

On her palm was clearly a mark - a big number 2 that wouldn’t disappear no matter how hard she scrubbed her hands under freezing water, 

She writes off her fall as a nightmare until she’s told to get into a car by Priest. And they drive to a cliff face and a kid with a rainbow rubber band whimpers as she stands on the safe cliff face. 

Take two, she thinks, moving to the opposite edge and letting herself fall again, with new faith in the universe. 

This times she hits the warm water as she swims upwards and gasps for air. There’s a tiny rope ladder to pull herself up but Bart ignores it in favour of swimming towards a rock that’s sharp and pointed. The same rock she almost hit the first time. She presses her hand on it, distracted until it hurt her. The blood pooled around the two marked on her palm. 

The universe was looking after her. Bart knew that for sure. 

Above her she overhead arguments. The kid was pleading desperately that he shouldn’t have to go, that wouldn’t prove that he was holistic, that he was afraid. 

Blackwing pushed him anyway and Bart watched him get closer and closer until she realised he was about to make the same mistake. His eyes were closed and his bracelet was now a toy that he gripped like a lifeline. Something about the big two on her hand puts Bart into action and she stands as well as she could to save him. 

The impact of him falling on her sends them both backwards but somehow, by a miracle, they both survive, rolling around the water together. 

“Geez I thought you were scrawny,” Bart complained. 

The kid just stares. “You saved me.” 

“Yeah,” Bart says back, “you’re tiny.” 

“I’m Svlad,” he introduces softly, “not Icarus.” 

“Bart,” she grunts back. Above them guards shout and peer over the side - as if they ever had anywhere to go when only rocky seas were stretched in front of them. “You really are tiny. How old are you?” 

“I- I don’t know,” he replies. 

“Me neither.” 

“Icarus!” Mr Priest sings at them. “Marzanna!” 

“We should go.” 

Bart nods. “Come on kid.” 

“I’m not a kid,” he protests, even if he needs Bart’s help to reach the rope at all. 

“How would you know?” she asks. She steps onto the ladder and offers him a hand. 

“Bart,” he says softly, “me too.” 

He holds up his own palm with a bright two engraved on it. They hold their palms together and even if they were wet and numb, Bart could swear she felt  _ something _ . 

“Everything is connected,” says the kid, with wide eyes. 

 

* * *

She doesn’t see much of the kid after that. Seeing anyone at Blackwing was a rare occurrence in the first place - it was more of a prison than the hospital that they’d pitched it as. 

The number vanishes the day after she meets the kid. Her count of the amount of repeated days that link her and the kid together. Then she wakes up with a big five and realises what it means - the kid, Svlad, has died five times. This was another chance for him to survive and she can’t work out how - but they’re linked somehow. 

It isn’t until she awakes from a drowsy nap (after destroying a new machine they try and poke her with) to blaring alarms that she realises today is a big day. 

The door of her room which had always been sealed, even by the universe, opens with a simple push to a scene of chaos. Guards lie motionless and all the doors are open. The universe gives her a gun as another guard fall and Bart picks it up. 

Some weird instinct kicks in and she picks up the gun. The universe whispers to her that there’s one bullet left and to use it when she tells her. Bart lets her feet guide her until she hears a shout and turns in the corridor. There’s a soldier and she knows and points and shoots and he falls. 

Behind him, a small bundle of jumpsuits and dark hair looks at her. 

_ Svlad.  _

“You’re real,” he says softly. “I thought I made you up. You saved me this time.” 

He holds up a palm with the same number on it. 

“I think I’m always meant to save you, like a holistic assassin.” 

“Bodyguard,” the kid says at the same time. 

“Want to leave then?” she asks, pulling a new gun from the soldiers limp grip. 

Svlad nods and stands up. He’s taller than her now but still anxious. So much older - how long it had been since they last met? How many years wasted in Blackwing? 

He’s still a kid in her eyes though - the same scrawny kid she wrestled in the icy sea and froze time to save - so Bart leads the way out. 

 

* * *

Fresh air is what takes her by surprise. It’s so clean, so cool on her skin. When they’re a safe distance away, she falls onto her knees in cool dirt and rubs her fingers over grass. 

Svlad only watches her. He looks at the sight of nature and blue skies and Bart rolling in dirt like it’s the first time he has seen it all. 

“Where do we go now?” 

“Anywhere.” Bart smiles. “I can drive so let’s steal a car. We can be on the other side of the country with the right car.” 

“I don’t have anyone.” 

Bart has never needed anyone so she shrugs. “You got me kid. Let’s go somewhere with sun.” 

“I figured out how old I am,” Svlad says. “Eighteen. It was in my file.” 

Bart shrugs. “Time isn’t real.” She holds up her marked palm. “Not for us.” 

“Marzanna, that’s what they call you,” he continues, “real name Bartine Curlish. Real home, somewhere called San Francisco. Real age twenty-four.” 

Part of her her had forgotten this. “I like Bart.” 

“Me too. Can you really drive?” 

Bart spots a tiny convertible driving past; a little flashy but it could do her well. 

“Let’s find out.” 

 

* * *

They seperate at the middle of a city. Svlad finds a case and feels the pull of the universe. Bart can respect this, respect the guidance. Svlad is a detective just as she is an assassin and they are compelled by the universe to find a place. She stuffs stolen cash into his pockets and watches him disappear. 

She’s not sad exactly because the universe has marked him just like herself. Power over time, the ability to repeat over and over until things are right. Her hand will show when he’s in danger and the blank palm will show when he’s safe. 

One day they will meet again, promises the universe, and Bart trusts her wisdom. She picks a city on a map at random and drives until she finds what she needs. 

 

* * *

Svlad stays hidden but snippets of the news show mysteries solved by a strange detective with a British accent. She knows it’s him and thanks the universe for keeping her updated on the closest thing to an ally she ever has. 

One day when she’s scrubbing dirt from her hand she find a three scrawled on. Third time he had lived this over. She pays more attention and kills everyone she feels like. 

The next day she wakes up feeling sick and with a four and she kills everyone. 

The number vanishes after that. 

 

* * *

Bart finds herself on the wrong side of an arrest when she feels herself unable to run. From the corner of her eye, she sees a stray bullet that has touched her hair and feels herself get yanked backwards. 

She wakes in the back of a car and vomits until there’s nothing left. It had been years since she felt this sensation. Her life would have ended but she’s safe. 

Bart looks down at the two on her hand wonders if Svlad is worried about her. 

She repeats the day over but kills the officer first. The universe thanks her by letting her live to a new day with no numbers. 

_ (There are more days like that. Repeating days where she wakes up knowing Svlad died or she herself is saved. But only those two. Until she meets Ken and the universe sends her a curveball.)  _


	2. Chapter 2

Bart never remembers being taught to drive, so maybe it’s another thing she was born with. It’s helpful though and her life falls into a cycle of driving and stealing and killing.

She spots a bald man with a gun who’s by a truck just as her own car dies.

 _Him,_ the universe whispers. She grabs her machete and kills him. He puts up a good fight but if Bart wanted someone dead, that was how they ended up, one way or another.

There’s another man with him so Bart chases him. He screams and begs and runs but it’s nothing she hasn’t seen before. Expect when she goes to strike his chest, her arm is suddenly stiff and the same feeling of having her inside squished. Bart knows this too well but it’s not ever like this. Never because she’s about to kill the wrong person.

She’s pulled back through time and opens her eyes in the front if her car; she covers her mouth and breathes until she stops feeling ill. All that’s left is a number on her palm and a lot of questions she isn’t sure how to answer.

 

* * *

 

The second time, she still chases him because he runs but throws down her machete. That’s not enough for him to relax. Bart hold her hands up in the sign of peace and he stares up at her.

“Are you Dirk Gently?” Bart asks, because that must be it. The universe told her to find Dirk Gently and now this guy is still alive despite her best attempts.

“No.”

Bart stares down at him. “You ran away from me.”

“You have a machete!”

“I put it down!” Bart replies, “What’s so special about you then, if you’re not Dirk Gently?”

“Why did you kill Red?”

“Because I’m meant to,” Bart replies. She looks at her palm. “I’m meant to kill a lot of people. Not you.”

“Thank God.”

“I’m Bart,” she picks up the machete again and points it at him, “get in the car.”

He holds up his hands. “Woah, woah. I thought you said not me. Like not killing me”

“I did,” Bart says, “but would you get into the car otherwise?”

 

* * *

 

They drive in silence. Bart thinks Ken’s sulking because she threatened to kill him and kidnapped him. He’ll understand later when things start to interconnect like they usually do.

She feels a tug in her chest as the car starts to slow as a gas station creeps into view.  

“We gotta stop for gas.”

Ken frowns. “You don't need gas.”

Bart shrugs. “Call it a hunch.” She stops the car and helps him out. She hits the top of car. “Get up on the roof. Where I can see you till I get back.”

“The roof? Won't this look suspicious?”

Bart kind of likes him. “Ken, you're a riot.”

She leaves him sitting on the car roof and strolls into the store. It was a mess, covered in blood and already ransacked. She isn’t afraid. What could they do to her? She’s indestructible. Unkillable. Deadly.

A gun cocks but it’s in Bart’s hand before the guy can even blink. She kills him without thinking about it.

It’s what she was born for; Bart knows that much.

Ken calls from outside. “Bart, did you just kill someone?”

(He’ll learn to get used to it.)

 

* * *

 

They drive through the night and sleep in the car. Ken’s face is scrunched up in his sleep and Bart checks his hands. Both blank, unlike her own. Unlike Slyvad, wherever he is. How long had it been since she saw him? _Five years? Longer._

Bart watches the clock tick over to midnight. The two dissolves into her skin.

She glances at the sleeping Ken.

_What was so special about him? Why was he protected too? Did he remember the first time they met?_

_Who was Dirk Gently?_

She drifts off, head full of questions and no answers.

 

* * *

 

When the car breaks down, Bart knows it’s a sign. It always is. “Cars are like that,” she tells Ken, “always turning off and on again, breaking down, and then fixing themselves.”

He shakes his head. “No, they aren't.”

She’s lived this day over. Sheknows the car is meant to break down. That she’s meant to kill a man who fixes it and that he’ll shoot her when she tries.

The bullet will never hit her though, so Bart isn’t scared.

Bart shrugs. “You spend enough time with me and you’ll see. This holistic thing is no joke.”

“I don’t want to,” he says.

“Tough luck Buddy,” she says, “the universe wants us together, so here we are.”

“You believe that?”

Bart nods. “I have no reason not to. I’m looked after.”

“By who?”

“The universe? I was born like this.”

Ken flinches as she reaches into her pocket. Bart offers him raisins and smiles.

“Scared?”

“You were born a psychopath?”

She shrugs. “If that’s your word for it. I’m an assassin, just for the universe. She tells me where to go. I’m not the only one.”

“Other assassins?” Ken asks, “what happened to them? Did you kill them?”

“I never met them. When I was a kid, I was part of... a I don't know what it was. Something bad. There were others like me, though. Hollistcs. I only ever met one.”

“Dirk Gently?” Ken asks, “what did he do to make you want to kill him?”

“I don’t know who he is yet. But, we'll find each other. He came to me in a dream I had. That means we will meet. Somewhere, some time. The world will take me where I need to go. To who I gotta meet.”

“Like fate?” he asks curiously. For the first time, he doesn’t seem afraid of her. It fills her chest with a weird sense of warmth. She keeps talking.

“I'm like a leaf in the stream of creation until I find Dirk Gently, whoever or whatever that is, and then I'm a piranha in the stream of creation. I kill him and the world is better off.”

“But how can you know that? That it is the right thing?” Ken asks, “it sounds… like a murder spree.”

She looks away, digging her heels in the ground. “You’ll see. I think the universe brought me to you for a reason. When I find Dirk Gently, you can go home. Not that anyone cares.”

She tosses him a phone with no notifications.

 

* * *

 

Bart watches Ken try to convince the man to run. It’s equally as amusing the second time around. She sees his eyes widen comically and pulls out the gun from her jacket. “Want me to kill him now?”

Ken looks between them and nods. “Yes?”

She knows he’ll aim it at her before he does. The bullet that almost killed her is easily sidestepped and she pulls her own trigger.

Ken stares at her as she stuffs raisins in her mouth.

"Did you just dodge a bullet?"

She shrugs. "The bullet dodged me."

(She doesn't tell him it killed her yesterday.)

“How-” he stutters.

“I can't be hurt, universe won't allow it.” She hold up her palm and grins at him. “Only constants are me and gravity.”

“You're insane.”

“I’m unkillable,” she says, “basically. Can’t die. Time stops when I do. And then restarts. I’m special. So was a friend of mine.”

“Like _‘Groundhog Day’_?”

“What?”

“The movie? You don’t know what a movie is, do you?” She shakes her head. “How many times has today happened?”

“Twice. If I don’t kill the right person, or I die, or he dies; it restarts.”

“Oh my…” Ken sits down in the road, “how many times have we had this conversation?”

“First for me too buddy. But, the universe didn’t led me kill you.”

Ken gulps and looks down at his hands. “Meaning?”

“I guess that must mean you're special too.”

 

* * *

 

They drive in silence as Ken stares out the window.

“Cheer up.” She hits him.

“Why?” He asks, “It’s been a long day.”

Bart’s lived the day over twice but she doesn’t bring it up. Ken’s already freaked out about the murder thing and the time thing.

“We were having fun. You were talking to me about stuff. You know, you were asking me questions and stuff and it was good. No one ever talks to me.”

Ken scrowls. “You killed that guy.”

“You’re going to have to get over that if you want to be my friend.”

Ken looks like he wants to argue, until the radio changes and he laughs. “Oh, man. This song.”

Bart peers at him curiously. “Really? Do you know this song?” She turns it up but it’s still foreign to her ears.

Ken laughs some more. “Yes, of course.”

Bart stares at him. “Wow. How? Like Like you've heard it before?”

“Yes.”

“Woah.” Bart laughs with him. “Like… do you know the words of the song he's gonna sing? Do they play the same song on the radio more than once? Do you like it?”

Ken hums along. “Yes. How could you possibly not know that?”

“There wasn’t any radios where I grew up. And I don't know who the people on the radio ar: I never met them. Do you know where they're singing from?”

Ken laughs at her some more. Bart kinda likes how it sounds. _Carefree. Peaceful. Happy._ _  
_ “It's a recording.”

“Woah! Hey, now you're laughing.”

Ken stiffens. “No, I'm not laughing at you.”

She laughs along. “You’re a crappy lair Ken. Sing it.”   
“Why?”

“To prove you know it. I mean, I don't know the words of songs and stuff, but then I turn on the radio, and you know the words of the songs he's going to sing, you know? It's kind of unbelievable.”

Ken laughs. “You’re the unbelievable one Bart.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> I love this take on Bart and Dirk's connection. The idea they are saving each other and always meant to save each other is so beautiful to me. 
> 
> Let me know what you thought!


End file.
